Heritage's Brookes: Probe Russia on Downed Jet

The U.S. probe into the downing of a Malaysian jet over Ukraine must focus on what the Russian government knows, according to Peter Brookes, a former CIA officer and senior fellow of National Security Affairs at The Heritage Foundation.

"My sense is it probably was a Russian-serviced air missile, probably operating out of Ukraine,'' Brookes said Thursday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

"The big question for me right now obviously other than the terrible human tragedy was what role did Moscow have in this? Did they approve the movement of this serviced air missile battery, if that's what happened, did they support this policy?

"Or was this a rogue commander that moved across the border and was fighting with the rebels? There's still a lot to learn but it certainly makes the geopolitics of it much more serious than it was previously.''

Brookes believes the cause of the crash will emerge in short order.

"U.S. intelligence will run this to the ground pretty quickly and we'll probably know a lot more obviously in the morning, tomorrow, about this and it may be very difficult for the Russians to be able to deny it at all,'' he said.

The U.S. probe into the downing of a Malaysian jet over Ukraine must focus on what the Russian government knows, according to Peter Brookes, a former CIA officer and senior fellow of National Security Affairs at The Heritage Foundation.